Kethane Pack 0.9.2 - New cinematic trailer! - 1.0 compatibility update

[Prime1309]

So I need some verification on this but the new version doesn't need the Kethane Controller part anymore, correct?

[HGGundamReviews]

So I need some verification on this but the new version doesn't need the Kethane Controller part anymore, correct?

No it doesn't, the new version doesn't even include it. If your installing the new version and have the old still in place remove anything the new version doesn't have and overwrite the rest.

[Prime1309]

No it doesn't, the new version doesn't even include it. If your installing the new version and have the old still in place remove anything the new version doesn't have and overwrite the rest.

Thanks for the quick reply, this would explain why my ships failed to load with the controller attatched.

[Temeter]

Hi Guys, Im still really at a loss as to how to use the kethane jet engine....I have a rover testbed full of kethane with a kethane jet engine on the back and it always says kintake depleted...even if I cheat and fill upp kintake with hyperedit it just runs till that depletes...I am not sure what I am doing wrong.......I don't understand what I am doing wrong....I know I had this same issue when the engine first came out and I am sure it's me but can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

Yeah, this thing behaves quiet weird. My last test at kerbin went like this: I launched (directly from kerbal spaceport), and the engine had it's flameout above 10.000m. But the KIntake just started working again bit below 1.000m.

Lets make a speculation for your problem: I assume the intake value is calculated from the sea level, not the actual height above the ground. Maybe you're testing your rover above the height, where the KIntake start's working?

btw: About my old post: I just fired up the landing engines of my kethane refinery, looked how much fuel was expended, and how much kethane was needed to replenish the tanks. There might well be a mistake in my calculation. I just might check it again, i still have that refinery.

[HGGundamReviews]

@Majiir Since resources won't be implemented in 0.20 have you done any work to update this mod with any new features or anything?

[Catsceo]

Can anyone tell me what the wet mass of all the kethane tanks are? I'm going to build a miner that transports kethane from the surface of Ike to a refinery in orbit, but I need to calculate my fully loaded TWR.

[mushroomman]

Can anyone tell me what the wet mass of all the kethane tanks are? I'm going to build a miner that transports kethane from the surface of Ike to a refinery in orbit, but I need to calculate my fully loaded TWR.

1 unit of kethane weighs 0.001 tonnes. I think you can do the math to find out your wet mass.

[Sandworm]

Good mod. After a quick edit I'm now using kethane to generate oxygen. So manned trips to Jool are now possible without massive o2 storage.

My next project is to modify the kethane maps to better reflect water (more at the poles).

[SkyRender]

I'm not particularly looking for efficiency as much as I'm looking to reduce mass and number of parts, while at the same time not wasting any kethane, which is a limited resource.

It's a bit late, but I'll weigh in as well. An efficient Kethane mining operation is also a lean Kethane mining operation in every sense of the term (fewer parts, fewer launches, fewer ships, fewer trips, fewer wasted fuel units). With that in mind, here's what I do.

The miner itself is fairly self-explanatory: it's designed around being as minimal as possible in terms of parts and payload, since it will only ever be lifting off to go to a new mining site. If you want to drop the part count further, replace the arrays of solar panels with 4 of the large models. This particular model is designed to leave its final launch stage in Kerbin orbit as a rendezvous-capable refill station. It also comes with a secondary Kethane scanning device that can continue to perform orbital scans even as the miner settles down at its first deposit.

The fuel tug is even more simplistic. It has only 1.16 TWR on the Mun, but that's more than enough for it to bring back a full orange tank's worth of fuel per trip back to orbit plus some change. The final launch stage of this craft is meant to be taken out to the Mun to act as a similar fuel depot as the Kethane Miner's final launch stage.

Basically, with two launches, I set up a sustainable refueling industry that can ferry fuel back and forth between the surface and orbit of both Kerbin and the Mun, can continue to detect additional deposits, and it gets top-notch efficiency in converting on top of everything else. And it does it with the part count per final craft not exceeding about 70 (the most complex being the mining rig, by necessity; the fuel tug is sub-40 parts, I believe!).

[elind21]

ok, so i have the steam version of ksp, i have downloaded the latest build of kethane, i had it working back before the steam changeover, the satellite scans and detects kethane, but when i land at the site and drill, there is nothing coming out into my tanks, i even tried having a detector mounted to the lander, it was detecting while i was drilling, still nothing

Please help!

[Mokmo]

For some reason the Heavy Converter stopped working, all this while it still had plenty of Kethane, power and space. Is it a problem if the space is on a docked tank ? because right now it will only convert monoprop when i do a little space for it, but not Fuel and Oxi...

[Fyrem]

Mokmo, do you have space to store the Fuel and Oxi in a tank that HAS CONNECTION to the converter, via a fuel line whos arrows are pointing AT the converter, not the tank?

[SkyRender]

ok, so i have the steam version of ksp, i have downloaded the latest build of kethane, i had it working back before the steam changeover, the satellite scans and detects kethane, but when i land at the site and drill, there is nothing coming out into my tanks, i even tried having a detector mounted to the lander, it was detecting while i was drilling, still nothing

Please help!

There's a couple of possible problems that it could be, not the least of which being that you might not actually be on a Kethane deposit. Turn on the detector after loading your save. If it doesn't detect a deposit immediately, you are not actually on a deposit. Choosing a Kethane mining target can be deceptive since the scanner reports the size of the last known Kethane deposit regardless of whether your current position happens to be where that deposit is or not. The other likely culprit is that you forgot to put any Kethane storage apparatuses on your craft, but that's less likely.

[darkshot117]

Ok so I'm a bit confused about how fast Kethane deposits dry up. I scanned and located a rather large deposit in a crater on the Mun. I landed all my mining equipment and converter and began drilling. It worked well for a while, I filled about 2 medium sized kethane tanks worth, converted it, shipped the converted fuel up to my Mun station.

When I returned with my fuel ferry to get another load, my drill no longer collects any Kethane. I have my drill on a Rover with its own scanner, so I figured I mined out the immediate area, and drove off with my scanner to find the next deposit... After driving around for a dozen kilometers or so, the scanner didn't find a single thing anymore, despite the fact that the green dots on the map are all around the area I was in.

Is this a bug where my deposits somehow disappeared? Or did I seriously mine out all the kethane in the entire crater with just 2 tanks worth? =\

[SkyRender]

You probably mined it dry. You do need to pay attention to the size of a Kethane deposit when you select your target mining site. Remember, fuel conversion at 100% conversion efficiency still results in a 5:1 ratio of Kethane to resulting fuel. I've seen deposits generated that were as small as 16,000 Kethane before. I've also seen deposits that were well over 200,000. Don't just pick a site because it is a Kethane site, make sure it's substantial enough for your purposes too.

[HGGundamReviews]

You probably mined it dry. You do need to pay attention to the size of a Kethane deposit when you select your target mining site. Remember, fuel conversion at 100% conversion efficiency still results in a 5:1 ratio of Kethane to resulting fuel. I've seen deposits generated that were as small as 16,000 Kethane before. I've also seen deposits that were well over 200,000. Don't just pick a site because it is a Kethane site, make sure it's substantial enough for your purposes too.

Also its a good idea to make your miners mobile. So you can easily move to another site. Either by driving across the surface or by launching back into orbit.

[firegeek83]

It's a bit late, but I'll weigh in as well. An efficient Kethane mining operation is also a lean Kethane mining operation in every sense of the term (fewer parts, fewer launches, fewer ships, fewer trips, fewer wasted fuel units). With that in mind, here's what I do.

That concept forced me to redesign my entire Kethane operation after the mobile mining rig disaster (the loading up to watch my rigs explode for no reason..) With that, here's my take on a lean drilling platform and orbital refinery. I've been using Minmus as a test site for the real mission to Ike.

Drilling Platform

This is the remaining fuel left in the lander after takeoff with a full load of Kethane, transfer to refinery (without refueling) and then landing right back to the same spot.

[swifthands]

That concept forced me to redesign my entire Kethane operation after the mobile mining rig disaster (the loading up to watch my rigs explode for no reason..) With that, here's my take on a lean drilling platform and orbital refinery. I've been using Minmus as a test site for the real mission to Ike.

how is your craft recharge electricity? do i miss something?

[firegeek83]

there's four RTGs behind each battery on the top section. A little trick I found out in designing with limited space.

[firegeek83]

if you look at the Mk.2 (right lander), there is where I placed the RTGs

[SkyRender]

That concept forced me to redesign my entire Kethane operation after the mobile mining rig disaster (the loading up to watch my rigs explode for no reason..) With that, here's my take on a lean drilling platform and orbital refinery. I've been using Minmus as a test site for the real mission to Ike.

I can tell you now that there's a few tricks to the lean approach you haven't made the most of. The first and most important one is, keep your ISP as high as possible! Atomic engines may be massive, but they give you the best resulting delta-V in the game and are ideal for any body that is not Kerbin, Tylo, or Laythe. The other big one is to not bring any Kethane up from the surface if you can possibly avoid it. Even optimal conversion conditions result in a 1% loss when converting, meaning you're trucking extra weight up to orbit that won't pay for itself as efficiently as a minimalist LV-N-powered fuel tug will get you. That's only made worse when you consider all of the extremely heavy equipment that Kethane mining requires by proxy (drills, a converter, extra power generation, and so on). The side-effect of this is that you only ever need absolutely minimal Kethane storage on a mining rig. Of course, if you've decided you won't be using Quantum Fuel Transfer or Merlin's Resource Transfer System, that can lead to some interesting (but very possible to deal with!) problems.

Edited May 16, 2013 by SkyRender

[KWall24]

if I make a mobile mining rig, with a kethane tank and drills and a converter on one 'cart', and then dock that to a fuel tank/rcs 'cart', will it function properly? I'm worried that it won't convert across the docking port. Also, anybody wanna show their mobile mining rig?

[SkyRender]

I came up with something that may be of interest to those who want to reduce their miner unit's profile...

Behold, the tiniest Kethane mining rig ever! It's that little thing attached to the bottom of the massive fuel tug above it. It's a self-sustaining unit that can technically move about a little bit, designed to dock with the fuel tug on the surface of whatever planet it's landed on. With a bit of tweaking, it could be made to support a fan-made fuel transfer system as well. It would be stupendously easy to get a four-part mission set up with all of this: fuel ferry, mini-miner, polar-orbit Kethane detector, and fuel depot.

[firegeek83]

so how does the mini miner link up with the fuel tug on the surface? I like the idea of slimming down the mining package to as small as possible (nice job btw), but I suppose I'd have to see this in action to see where you're going with it.

[SkyRender]

so how does the mini miner link up with the fuel tug on the surface? I like the idea of slimming down the mining package to as small as possible (nice job btw), but I suppose I'd have to see this in action to see where you're going with it.

The idea is that it uses its little engines to lift itself up onto the mining rig's docking port. I've tested it, and it still needs a bit of weight balancing, but it will work properly once that's sorted out. Actually, it already works properly on Minmus: the magnetic force is sufficient to overcome Minmus' minimal gravity and pull it right up to the docking port on the bottom of the fuel tug. You just have to get the tug properly over the top of the mining rig, and let magnetism do its thing!

Edited May 17, 2013 by SkyRender